How much Steam loves Windows 8 is known to all.
Gabe Newell, the CEO of Valve (and the force behind the Steam gaming platform) has been regularly criticizing Windows 8 ever since it was announced. In fact, in a recent interview to The Verge, he found Windows 8 unusable, and went so far as to liken Microsoft’s latest OS a giant sadness:
“The thing about Windows 8 wasn’t just [Microsoft’s] distribution. As somebody who participates in the overall PC ecosystem, it’s totally great when faster wireless networks and standards come out, or when graphics get faster. Windows 8 was like this giant sadness. It just hurts everybody in the PC business.”
Steam usage among Linux users has increased to a fair few thousands, and the company believes in the future of the platform to such an extent that it has started promoting Steam for Linux to Windows users.
According to Ubuntu Vibes, this promotion was earlier reserved only for people on the Linux OS, but now Steam is trying to convince Windows users to make the jump to Linux, go so far as to putting a download link to get Ubuntu 12.04 LTS — one of the most popular flavors of Linux.
Switching to Linux is pretty easygoing these days. There are no special hardware requirements, and there is no need to even replace Windows. Hardware compatibility has also improved drastically since the early days of the penguin operating system.
Not to mention the OS is absolutely free to download and use.
Ultimately, though convincing gamers that Linux is the future is one thing, but convincing game developers is where the real battle is. Very few games support Linux, and if a particular title is missing, gamers will have no choice but to get back to the Windows platform.
Nevertheless, Steam most probably is busy behind the scenes garnering developer support for the Linux platform, and getting as many developers on board as they possibly can.
All Comments
Good luck with that. This is the same catch 22 that Windows Phone finds itself in. But I suspect Windows Phone has a much better chance of breaking out of it over Linux. I suspect Gabe is just attempting to muster air time.